Date / 30 August, 2013. India
3 more die of burns in LPG leak blast incident
Updated: 2013-08-30-03:46
HYDERABAD: The fire which ravaged a house in Yakutpura on August 26 claimed three more lives on Thursday, raising the death toll in the tragic incident to five.
The five women living in the house were rushed to the Osmania General Hospital (OGH) on account of sustaining severe burns. While two of them died on Wednesday, the three others battling for their lives at the hospital, Azmat Ayesha alias Tasneem (28), Asra Tehseen (22) and Masood Fatima (64), succumbed to their injuries on Thursday.
The distraught family said while Hafsa Siddiqua and Azmat Sameena who died on Wednesday had suffered 63 per cent and 61 per cent burns respectively, Azmat Ayesha, who sustained only 33 per cent burn injuries, could have been saved. The relatives of victims staged a protest at OGH against the lack of prompt medical attention to the women.
"There was a good chance of her survival but the hospital authorities did not do much. They did not change the sheets on which the injured were laid for 48 hours. The treatment was horrible," said Mohammed Masooduddin Ahmed, Azmat Sameena's brother-in-law.
He added that the family had called 108 but the ambulance reached the house very late which is why they had to rush the victims to hospital in three autos. Cries for lodging a complaint against Srinivasa Gas Enterprises, the HP agency which delivered the leaking LPG cylinder on the fateful Monday evening, grew shriller as family members alleged that Rein Bazaar police were yet to file an FIR against the proprietor.
"I had submitted the complaint on August 28 but the police are yet to register a complaint against the agency. It was because of the faulty cylinder and utter negligence of HP gas that I lost two close relatives. Also, the fire tender reached the house very late," said Khaja Ghouse Mohiuddin, father-in-law of Hafsa Siddiqua, who had been living in the house in Yakutpura for the past four years.
AP Fire Services Department (APFSD) officials from Moghalpura fire station, on the other hand, maintained that a fire tender had left for Yakutpura soon after they received a call at 5.30 pm on Monday but had to face heavy traffic and narrow roads en route.
Minorities commission chairman Abid Rasool Khan said chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy had 'in principle agreed to grant ex gratia to the family of the deceased'. "I have recommended for an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh per deceased. A final call will be taken by the CM soon," Khan said.
Meanwhile, revenue department officials said that three houses would be given to the three family members of the deceased and ex gratia to families of the victims would also be recommended to the government.
OGH officials remained unavailable for comment.